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I do what I do for the stories I get to read every day. It’s amazing to not only see one beautiful wedding after another, but to read all of the amazing love stories. This one, my darlings, is a wonderful one. And the gallery from Sherry Hammonds Photography is just a beautiful extension of the lovely story!

From the stunning bride… My husband Muddassir and I were married on May 4, 2013 at the historic Chateau Bellevue in downtown Austin. Because I was diagnosed with breast cancer on February 17, 2012 and we were engaged April 17, 2012, we decided to make our wedding a celebration of life, family, and friends after my battle with cancer during our engagement.

We met on Lake Travis in May 2008. It took several months before I would give in to going out with him but persistence pays off! He lived in Houston at the time and we had a long distance relationship for the first three years. I cant even begin to calculate all the miles we drove back and forth from Austin to Houston just to see each other. He eventually decided to move to Austin and has never looked back.

Our wedding was a celebration of life because I finished my cancer treatment in January 2013 and am happy to say I am cancer-free today. We wanted to celebrate our families because they are our rocks. Plus, Muddassir and I come from very different cultural background (I’m American and he’s Indian) so we couldn’t think of a better occasion to celebrate the diversity! Last but not least, we celebrated our friends because they helped support and carry us through the hardest of times battling cancer.

The special details of our wedding highlighted everything we were celebrating. When guests arrived, they were greeted by the words family, friends, live, love, and faith hanging by the entrance – all things that Muddassir and I honor and cherish. Since Muddassir and I were the last ones in each of our families to marry, we displayed the wedding portraits of our parents and siblings to honor and showcase our family diversity. We also included our engagement portrait, which was particularly meaningful to us because of all the medical challenges I had gone through. We both had very long hair when we first got engaged, but when I went through chemo I lost mine. So to show his support, Muddassir cut his off too. (I donated 13 inches and he donated 8 inches.) At our wedding, we looked totally different from our engagement photo, to say the least.

My favorite details from the wedding are deeply rooted in my southern Louisianan heritage. They start with my engagement ring. The center stone is a European-cut diamond over 100-years old that belonged to my Great Grandmother Victoria on my moms side. I am the fourth woman in my family to wear it. My bouquet was held in my Great Grandmother’s tussie mussie, which also carried her handkerchief. Both of these pieces are over 100-years old as well, and I was the fourth generation in my family to carry the handkerchief in my wedding. I also borrowed my mothers pearl necklace and bracelet, which my father gave to her for an anniversary gift, and I wore a six pence in my shoe for good luck. My mother wore jewelry from my Great Grandmother too – a cameo that my grandfather (her father) bought in Italy during World War II to give to his mother (my Great Grandma), as well as her bangle.

Another detail I love about my engagement and wedding rings is that they were custom made for me by Arthur Faramarzi from Matter L.A. in Los Angeles. Arthur is an amazing jeweler and one of my best and dearest friends. Since my father was not able to walk me down the stairs from the balcony to the courtyard, Arthur escorted me down and passed me over to my father. And my wedding dress was beyond amazinga natural color Legends by Romona Keveza raw silk gown. To add a little pizzazz, I wore a Saison Blanche belt. I love to sparkle, so my belt, headband, and earrings were all Swarovski crystal. As a final touch Muddassir wrote me sweet notes on the bottom of my wedding shoes! My makeup artist, Sameera Ahmed, is a highly sought after professional makeup artist from Denver, CO who I am now very fortunate to call my sister-in-law.

At the reception our friends and family enjoyed our blue signature cocktail named after our family: The Love Doctor. Friends and family also took advantage of the photo booth and put together for us a wonderful photo album of all the pictures they took. We had a place where guests could write us little notes or advice for the married couple on some stones. Instead of a traditional bouquet toss, I opted to do wedding cake pulls, which comes from my Louisiana heritage. I selected nine of my girlfriends to pull charms from the cake before we cut it. Each charm had a different meaning, ranging from an anchor representing hope, to a fleur-de-lis representing prosperity, to a kitty representing the girl with nine lives. When we made our exit guests were given gold bells to ring tied to seed paper. When planted the seed paper grows into beautiful wildflowers.